The practical handling of power and data wiring in the workplace is a serious problem. Desktops and other work surfaces are all too often badly cluttered with a plurality of wires running across the desk in a haphazard manner. In addition, desktop devices often have to be plugged in when in use and unplugged when not in use or moved to other locations. Often this requires bending down under the work surface trying to find the wall outlet.
There has been a need for an efficient and yet aesthetic manner to handle these multiple wires that are needed in the work area. It has been known to have a retractably mounted receptacle for this purpose as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,747,788 and 5,351,173. These designs, however, suffer from the problem that the device must be pulled up from the work surface, the plugs inserted, and then the device pushed back down below the desk surface. This causes unneeded work on the part of the user and the unit also suffers from possible breakage due to the repeated movement of the device from the open to closed positions using a fragile release mechanism. In addition, the wires plugged into the wall sockets are pulled up each time the device is raised, causing additional problems.
Our parent application referred to above, provides a power and communications grommet that is an improvement over those shown in the prior art. This application provides improvements over the embodiments described in our parent application.